Hallelujah
by AchrenDuaite
Summary: Severus broods over a lost love. One-shot.


Severus bent over his cello, his fingers trembling slightly, missing the brandy that would have steadied him. No, this night, on the anniversary… He was painfully, bitterly sober, an honor to the memory of a moment so precious to him, yet one that she likely had long since discarded.

She was not beautiful, yet his eyes hungered for her. Though her skin was merely warm flesh, it felt like silk under his hands. He did not think he had been sober for a night since, ever since she had risen from his bed, put on her robes, and fled. America welcomed her back, and he had never seen her again. He knew she regretted it. In a way, so did he. And he knew there was nothing he could have done to make her stay.

_I've heard there was a secret chord_

_That David played, and it pleased the Lord_

_But you don't really care for music, do you?_

_It goes like this_

_The fourth, the fifth_

_The minor fall, the major lift_

_The baffled king composing Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

Perhaps if he had merely left her alone, kept his desire – and yes, his love! Why should he lie to himself? The bow moved angrily over the strings, yet despite the aggression of the motion he could draw nothing but stricken pain from the cello. The instrument knew his heart better than he knew himself. Perhaps there was some magic in it after all. It echoed his melancholy as he scorned himself. If he had only left her alone. Never made his confession, never taken her to his bed, perhaps their friendship would have remained intact. It would have killed him slowly to have her so close, yet out of reach, but would have hurt less than this torture. To never hear her voice! To never see her eyes! Those intelligent hazel eyes… Nothing else could touch him like those eyes. In a single night, in the span of a few hours, she had reduced him to everything he had strived not to be. She had flayed him raw and bared his soul, and the scraps he had managed to save were not enough to cover his nakedness. Nothing had been the same since.

_Your faith was strong but you needed proof_

_You saw her bathing on the roof_

_Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you_

_She tied you to a kitchen chair_

_She broke your throne,_

_She cut your hair_

_And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

He tried to ignore the sensation of being abandoned; the feeling of emptiness in his chest, somewhere around the location where, he heard it rumored, the human heart was to be found. But the heart was a myth, was it not? He had never shown signs of possessing one – at least, not since his childhood, and he had so effectively blocked those memories that he may as well have left the womb a fully grown man. He had almost convinced himself that it was just another lay, a chance to bed a moderately attractive woman before she returned to her life elsewhere. And he had almost believed the wound closed when he discovered her necklace on the floor beside his bed. He had spent many nights since staring at the blue gem on his bedside table, remembering how it had gleamed against her pale skin. Gods, how he longed to feel that skin.

_Maybe I've been here before_

_I know this room, I've walked this floor_

_I used to live alone before I knew you_

_I've seen your flag on the marble arch_

_love is not a victory march_

_It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

She had never sent him an owl, perhaps out of disinterest or shame. And pride prevented him from running after her like a lovesick teenager. Be damned if he would make another move. His checkmate had cost him everything. But on nights like this, his long-fingered hands drawing from his cello the emotion that he could not express, he wished he had no pride left.

_There was a time you'd let me know_

_What's real and going on below_

_But now you never show it to me do you?_

_Remember when I moved in you?_

_The holy dark was moving too_

_And every breath we drew was hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

Setting the cello aside, the last notes dying in the air, he padded over the carpet to his bed. After a long pause, he disregarded the bottle of brandy on his nightstand, instead picking up the necklace to toy with it in his elegant, slightly calloused hand.

How was it possible, he thought bitterly, for a heart to break when it had long ago been cut out and burned? He cursed himself for the dreams he had of her, waking up breathless, snarling in anger and burying his face in the pillow as he ignored his body's response to the memory. He loathed himself. For a single night of pleasure… He allowed his desire to overrule his logic and had lost, perhaps, the only true friend he had ever had. The only person who had ever enjoyed his company with no ulterior motives. How he loathed himself…

_Maybe there's a God above_

_And all I ever learned from love_

_Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you_

_It's not a cry you can hear at night_

_It's not somebody who's seen the light_

_It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah, Hallelujah_


End file.
